


goodnight, travel well

by bunnieju



Series: it's cold outside [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Astral Projection, But like dreamwalking is a hallway for asterial projection into other dimensions, Dimension Travel, Dreamwalker Jisung, Dreamwalking, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, I still don't know how tagging works, Minor Violence, Moving On, Other, but like platonic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 08:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnieju/pseuds/bunnieju
Summary: Jisung’s abilities as a dream walker emerge and he enters an alternate reality where Jaemin never died.





	goodnight, travel well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jenomeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenomeow/gifts).

> [here's a spotify playlist I made while writing](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4zG4LVYv4rLgtS5ldjfDqU?si=1ICWKh96RAqRYh6h6ovDRw)
> 
> for my wife isis, who has encouraged me so much ♡

Jisung had been awake for 39 hours the first time it happened.

He had been providing surveillance and tech support for a mission Jeno and Renjun were on, and since Chenle was reuniting with family in China, Mark stormed off god knows where a week before, and Donghyuck was taking a break after the storm that was Mark, he was on his own at headquarters. Jeno and Renjun felt guilty to leave him alone as their support, but Jisung knew how dangerous it would be on-site if only one of them went, so he insisted that they go and that he’d be fine.

And he was fine. Until the case flipped on its head and they were no longer hunting what they thought they were hunting, leaving Jisung to scramble together research and monitor the town’s surveillance cameras for the thing that went bump in the night. Jisung had consumed the headquarter’s entire coffee and ramen noodle stash by the time Renjun and Jeno’s excited yells of celebration made their way through to Jisung’s headset; they’d finally managed to kill the pesky son of a bitch causing trouble and Jisung couldn’t be more relieved.

So, after being briefed by Renjun and Jeno on their course of action before they would return home for a rest, Jisung said his goodbyes and collapsed right there on the HQ’s office desk he’d been glued to for the previous 39 hours. Jisung felt the tiredness weighing down his bones, and his consciousness quickly slipped away, letting his mind free fall into a dream.

Suddenly, Jisung was in a corridor and very, very confused. It was a pure white corridor with an end he could not see, and gems no bigger than his nails fading through all colors of the rainbow dotting the walls. Jisung couldn’t believe what he saw, as it looked like it was straight out of one of those art magazines Jisung had read in waiting rooms, but the corridor was strange in Jisung’s eyes; it looked solid, it looked like it was there, but the closer he looked it was as if it were made of smoke, or cloud, as if he’d just fall through if he tried to walk across it or place his hands on its walls.

Jisung’s jaw was dropped. He couldn’t believe his eyes, and in his state of awe, he took a step forward. In an instant, pure energy began humming off the walls, vibrating through Jisung’s bones, and cycling all kinds of feelings through Jisung so quickly it was hard to pinpoint even one. His fingertips tingled, his ears were heating up and he could feel his heart ever so slightly pick up speed. But before he could lose himself in the overwhelming power of the room, he paused.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jisung’s eyes widened in disbelief and the room stilled as if receptive to Jisung’s words.

Then, the whispering started. The whole room tingled with a similar, yet different, kind of energy, and Jisung would hear so many voices hurriedly whispering over each other, reminding him of an eager child trying to share a secret. But Jisung could not understand, and the whispers began getting louder and even less comprehensible, to the point where Jisung’s head began pounding and his ears began to hurt.

“Stop!” Jisung harshly whispered, closing his eyes in pain and covering his ears to soften the damage. 

The room stilled once again, and when Jisung opened his eyes and uncovered his ears, he heard it loud and clear. “Touch me, Jisung.” It was the gems...It was the fucking gems.  
Jisung grew even more baffled by everything, but nonetheless, he took a step forward and raised a cautious hand to the wall. The gems faded through colors faster than ever before, and with a shaky hand, he placed a finger on one of the gems.

Then the world exploded. Or it didn’t. But Jisung couldn’t tell the difference.

The moment his finger made contact with the gem, his world was flipped into nothing and everything at the same time. Power filled his entire body, catapulting him into a high he’d never felt before, and it crawled under and over his skin, giving him goosebumps everywhere. He could see stars, upon planets, upon systems, upon black holes, upon galaxies, upon universes, all at once. He saw the earth, and he saw civilizations similar to earth, thriving just the same, if not more. He heard everything: stars collapsing into themselves, planets colliding, meteoroids hitting anywhere from ice to fire hot lava, planets orbiting stars, moons orbiting planets, storms engulfing atmospheres, cars on roads, sirens from police cars, voices in conversation, tickings of the clocks, mosquitos buzzing in the environment.

Jisung was God.

And then he felt it. Billions upon billions of years of every single emotion coursed through Jisung’s blood and dampened his soul, somehow as one single entity: despair. It felt like a truck slowly rolling over his fragile body, breaking every single bone that upheld his existence into millions of shards, and all he could do was wail in agony.

Jisung collapsed onto the white tiled floors of the corridor, head down with tears streaming down his face, body trembling, and burned hand cradled to his chest. “Why? Why? Why?” He sobbed repeatedly to the gems, like a broken record. But the corridor was stilled as if it was never alive to begin with.

Jisung continued sobbing as he raised his shaking hands into his line of sight. There on his wrist, the number “190120211814” singed into the skin of his left arm, a number unfamiliar to Jisung yet it provoked a string of emotion in Jisung, prompting more tears. He hugged his legs to his body and wrapped his arms around himself as he let every wave of emotion tear through him until he couldn’t think anymore.

He doesn’t know how long he just sat there in the mess of mind, but eventually, he began to calm down and the endless end of the corridor began flickering a blinding light. Jisung covered his eyes to avoid the pain of the light in his eyes, and by the time he uncovered his eyes, the end of the corridor had changed.

Now in place of the seemingly endless side of the corridor, was a door. It was a solid, silver shining metal, with a flat surface, no handles, no locks, no hinges, just a smooth metal door with a black metal frame and a keypad to it’s right.

Jisung shakily lifted himself off the floor, careful not to put any strain on his burned wrist, in case the moving of skin would trigger a worse wave of pain. He cautiously stepped down the hallway, until he was in front of the door and he held his breath. Should he really have been taking any more chances in trusting the hallway after what the gems had done to him?

But Jisung was known to be way too curious for his own good, his curiosity even getting him possessed as a teenager. He immediately made the connection between the number on his wrist and the keypad and began slowly typing in the numbers.

1-9-0-1-2-0-2-1-1-8-1-4, Jisung’s body shook harder with every number he typed in until the keypad flashed green and he could hear the whirring of machinery behind the door, his whole body stilled.

The door slid open slowly to reveal absolutely nothing. Jisung was baffled, it was literally a consuming nothing on the other side of the door, and he stood examining it for a few minutes. He then started weighing his options in his head, go in the nothing and figure out what this was all about or stay in the hallway and cry. He impulsively made his choice, falling through the doorway into the nothing. And he was gone.

Jisung awoke on his bed back at the HQ to the sunlight peeking through the side of his curtain and blinding him. Slowly and reluctantly, he raised his face off his pillow and blinked away the sleep. He then sat up in confusion of the dream he had and began raising his arms to rub his eyes with his hands, allowing him to catch sight of the healed scar of the numbers that had been burned into his wrist in his dream, and he realized it had not been a dream. Jisung scrambled off his bed and threw open his door to search for his phone at the office desk to call Jeno and Renjun when he heard the sound of pans and plates being moved in the kitchen.

Immediately, his fight or flight mode kicked in and he unsheathed a mini knife attached inside the pocket of his jeans. Jisung began creeping down the hallway until he arrived to the kitchen and he peeked around the open doorway, into the kitchen.

Jisung dropped his knife with a loud clatter as the metal made contact with the wood. Everything was slow and warbled as if the room was underwater, but Jisung’s head knew it wasn’t. His mouth filled with cotton and his words left him at the sight in the kitchen. Because there in all his glory stood Jaemin making breakfast.

Jisung’s head screamed at him to move, to do something, that this logically was probably a shapeshifter or some other creature ugly enough to try to pretend to be Jaemin because Jaemin being in their kitchen was impossible. Jaemin was dead. Jisung had seen his body in the morgue, he’d watched as they cremated him, and he’d watched as they buried his ashes in that casket, because Donghyuck had insisted on a regular funeral, instead of a hunter’s burial.

_Jaemin was dead._

But there was Jisung watching in horror as the Jaemin copycat in their kitchen turned to him and stared at him in surprise for a moment. Then “Jaemin” immediately caught sight of the burned number on his wrist and a look of recognition flashed through his eyes before he looked back up and smiled brightly at Jisung. And that’s when Jisung knew that this wasn’t a copycat. 

The familiar way the corner of his lips tilted upwards, showing his perfectly aligned teeth, coupled with the absolute warm glow of pure love and happiness that his smile radiated was something that no one could replicate, and trust Jisung, he’d tried to. It was his beloved Jaemin, in the flesh, radiating his regular waves of love and kindness and filling Jisung with a new kind of nostalgia and grief. As if his feet had a mind of their own, Jisung rushed forward and embraced Jaemin with all the strength he had in his body.

“Woah there tiger,” Jaemin chuckled, nonetheless wrapping his arms around Jisung. “I’m assuming that last night’s dream walking went terrible?”

“Dream walking…” Jisung mumbled and it dawned on him. He was in an alternate reality. He was a dream walker. But how?

Jisung had done research on dream walkers before, but there wasn’t much could have learned about them because the lore was so different from source to source and culture to culture, not to mention dream walkers were so rare. So, what triggered his dream walking and why hasn't it been triggered before?

But Jisung didn’t have time to extensively ponder the questions because Jaemin pushed him away and placed his hands on Jisung’s shoulders. “I can see that you’re shaken up, so you don’t have to tell me where you visited, but sit down so I can finish breakfast and then we can have a recovery cuddle day. Renjun, Jeno, Donghyuck, and Mark left for Gwangju this morning and Chenle is in China, so we have the house to ourselves.”

Tears filled Jisung’s eyes with every word that came out of Jaemin’s mouth. Maybe it was because he’d never allowed himself to mourn his Jaemin, as the aftermath of his death left too many wounds in his makeshift family, that Jisung found himself nursing everyone back to health. Everyone but himself. Oh little Jisung, how strong was he? Taking care of his brothers, filling their empty beds, drying tears, holding hands, planning funerals, calling friends, and at the end of it all, not shedding a single tear as they lowered the casket of his very best friend.

Death was not kind. Merciless, cold, empty, selfish was death, but Jisung respected death because he thought that in the grand scheme of things, it would be straightforward and honest. Yet sitting there in the familiar living room of a house he knew so well in a universe so unfamiliar to him, he realized that death was nothing but a narcissistic child. Throwing tantrums resulting in mass despair, snatching where it could, and never once even pretend to care for what has been taken. Death walked upon the earth supported on legs of justified entitlement, for “God”, or the world, or even just the author, allowed for death have ownership over everything. From queens bathed in jewels, to peasants slaved to life, to even the marigolds that bloomed every spring, death befell on everything.

Nausea whirled in his stomach as sorrow rained down from the black cloud of longing that hung over him. Jisung just couldn’t help it, he’d missed Jaemin so so much, and to have an authentic Jaemin standing right there in front of him, comforting him as if nothing ever happened, was a dream he never wanted to wake from.

Jisung nodded and that started their day of cuddles and comfort food. Jaemin and Jisung had sent the entire morning wrapped up in each other on the couch watching Netflix sitcoms on tv. The Jaemin had ordered take out, laughing with slight concern because Jisung wouldn’t let go long enough for him to cook anything, not even for them to properly eat. And eventually, they moved their cuddle fest to Jisung’s room. They laid there in comfortable silence for so long. 

“Goodnight, travel well.” Jaemin whispered to Jisung, giving him a kiss on the forehead before he dozed off. Jisung attempted to stay awake for as long as he could, just further memorizing every detail of Jaemin’s face, but he too eventually succumbed to sleep.

Jisung awoke with his upper body laid over the desk of the HQ’s office and was immediately hit by a truck of physical pain, grief, and longing. In desperation, he raised his left arm, only to sigh in relief at the sight of the number scarred into his wrist.

It was real. He saw Jaemin. It was a Jaemin from an alternate reality, but it was so authentically Jaemin. He felt like the Jaemin that stayed up with him all night when it felt like his head was nothing but a nightmare. He felt like the Jaemin that spent months helping Jisung study for his college entrance exams. He felt like the Jaemin that nursed him back to health when he let his studies dig him into sickness. He felt like the Jaemin that attended all his showcases with gigantic, unique banners, and screamed so loud that sometimes Jisung was embarrassed. He felt like the Jaemin that fought so hard to protect Jisung till the day he died. It may not have been his Jaemin, but oh god he was just like him.

So, that night he found himself standing in front of that familiar flat metal door, typing in the number that had caused him so much pain yet brought him so much happiness. And the night after that. And the night after that. 

Jisung’s days were filled with work, Renjun, Jeno, Donghyuck, and Chenle, sometimes the occasional voicemail to Mark who’d never answer their calls, and his nights were filled with another day of simply existing in the alternate reality’s Jaemin’s present.

But Jisung was tired and guilty. His mind could never rest when every time his consciousness ebbed, he’d leave his reality to live in another, and he did not know how to stop himself from appearing in that ever-familiar hallway in his dreams. The tiredness weighed down his bones, but the guilt was different. This guilt was unfamiliar to him as it didn’t sit on his chest to make itself known through the weight it set on his existence, this guilt made itself known as an ugly scar burned into his left arm depicting the numbers 190120211814 and every night as he settled in his bed he could feel it send ice through his veins and romantically whisper words into his ears under the melancholic moonlight. They whispered that he’d been blessed to be a dream walker, but Jisung couldn’t help but feel it as a curse. A curse to stare into the darkness of the doors, and in the doors, eternity stared back.

And every night he let dark eternity consume him a little more.

Jisung had lost track of how many times he’d spent in the presence of alternate reality’s Jaemin, but that particular day Jaemin had been unusually quiet, as if picking apart and putting together a thousand-piece puzzle of thoughts in his head, over and over again. Until finally, laid beside Jisung in the darkness of Jisung’s room, Jaemin spoke up.

“You can’t keep coming here, Jisung.” Jaemin’s eyes met Jisung’s with a familiar dullness of sadness.

“What do you mean, hyung?” Jisung whispered, furrowing his eyebrows. “This is my home.”

“You know what I mean,” Jaemin frowned, reaching his hand forward to place it on Jisung’s cheek. “I don’t know what happened in your dimension, but you need to face it with the people you have over there, you can’t keep dream walking here every night. Next time you’re in the Hall of the Timeless, turn around and walk away from the door.”

A silence fell upon them like a thick blanket of stillness as Jisung processed what Jaemin said.

“You know.” Jisung stared in disbelief. “You’ve known this whole time that I’m not from here.”

“My Jisung was a dream walker too, but…” Jaemin whispered to himself, tears filling his eyes. “My Jisung is dead.” And it was as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over Jisung. His mind began to shut down, unwilling to even think and his arms covered with goosebumps. A realization rushed over him that this was a price they paid, to always lose a piece of them, whether it was Jaemin, Jisung, Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Chenle, or Donghyuck, they’d always lose and they’d always be left fit back the remaining pieces the best they could.

“I thought…” Jaemin swallowed a visible lump in his throat, and tear after tear leaked through his eyes. “That I should have let you stay around because I desperately needed to hold Jisung, as if he never died. But baby, it just hurts more, to see you and know that you’re not him and that you’d never be him.”

Jisung let that soak into his head before he spoke up. “My Jaemin is dead.” And in his words, he felt the familiar prickles of pain.

Jaemin did not respond verbally, but physically, wrapping his arms around Jisung and holding him tightly as sudden sobs racked Jisung’s entire body and he let himself mourn.

It was like every atom of his being screamed in joint agony for what Jisung lost that snowy day. Every happy memory, every laugh, every hug, every fight, every tear that he could recall sharing with Jaemin unraveled before Jisung’s feet until he was drowning in the things he’d never have again. Grief filled his lungs after every expelled breath and his screaming wails called for the Jaemin shaped hole in his heart to throb and burn, as an emptiness filled his existence and squeezed his soul. The weight on his shoulders threatened to kill him, but he couldn’t escape, he’d been ignoring it for way too long.

“Closure, baby…” Jaemin ran his fingers through Jisung’s hair in attempts to soothe him. “We both need closure, and then we need to move on.”

Then for hours, they laid in each other’s company, and between tears, wails, silence, and pain, they found peace in each other.

“I miss him. I miss you.” Jisung whispered, feeling his consciousness bleed out through the wounds of tiredness that covered his body. “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.” Jaemin smiled through tears. “Goodnight, travel well.”

**Author's Note:**

> *190120211814 is code for “Saturn” as a reference to Saturn by Sleeping at Last. Mainly these lyrics: 
> 
> “You taught me the courage of stars before you left,  
How light carries on endlessly, even after death,  
With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite,  
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.”
> 
> honestly, I had better plans for this,, but things write themselves. this is actually my only entry for 00fftober since I'm a terrible writer (unless I impulsively write 2k words for a prompt like I did with this).
> 
> shout out to admin tea!!
> 
> [find me on twitter](twitter.com/bunnieju)


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